Sisyphus Shrugged

It's been a quiet week at Lake Wobegon...oh, wait...that's Keillor, not me. Oh, well. It's been quiet here, too. Weeding, picking blackberries, going to an auction (I scored a lot books, a gold piece, toys for the kids and...stuff), posting to my other blogs (like Soda? How about food and eating out? Root Beer? There'll be entries there over the next day or two), deciding what to plant in some newly emptied beds and hoping my cucumbers hurry up, watching the kids do their things, making a batch of Root Beer and many other mundane things. I like the mundane things. They aren't complicated and there's seldom any way they get really screwed up.

The mundane keeps me rooted and give me time to think about things, the universe and life in general. I'm allowed to day dream when I weed the garden, or have a conversation with myself while I'm crafting a batch of Root Beer. It's truly difficult to do those things in the meat grinder that most of us have faced in the work place. There's no time to think when you're facing a deadline, dealing with customers, making the next sale or fixing the 90 and 11 problems that arise on a normal day. It's no wonder we have few great philosophers or troublemakers in this day and age. Everyone is seemingly too busy to get a breath or think beyond the moment or to the end of the day.

Everything's scheduled, right down to the time some people are spending with their families. You're never "off the clock". That's not life. It's slavery and existence, not living. I don't miss my old 8-11 job in sales. I don't miss dealing with irate customers or demanding bosses. 120 degree kitchens? Nope. Blasts of 400 degree steam in the face? Not so much. 1st-3rd degree burns? Not missed. I will admit to sometimes missing my first restaurant job. Dishwashing. Long stretches of time when your body is on autopilot and all you do is push dishes and think. It's an exhausting job with one high point...two, actually...every other kitchen job is up from the dishtable.

One of the things I haven't had to deal with lately is futility. I get to see it, but I don't have to experience it. I get to shrug my shoulders and move on to the next thing. It's not quite so simple for those involved in the political aspects of libertarianism, tho. They seem to have futility blindness, it seems. Take the recent debacle here in Indiana where 12 LP candidates were declared ineligible to run for office by using a carefully targeted law. A law that was specific to the Libertarian Party. It didn't apply to Republicrats or their buddies the Democrats. It was designed solely to deprive LP candidates of their right to run for office. Some of those candidates are now running as Democrats, with no penalties....imagine that.

I know folks can see the big picture and have to realise that no Libertarian is ever going to be allowed to win anything substantive. The political arm of libertarianism is almost obsessive in their refusal to recognise the futility of playing the political game any longer. When you make the bar, the BOYN Party just raises it again and makes you have to work harder to meet even the minimums. It's just a cruel joke for them and they have a vile sense of humour. Somewhere there must be a political version of Prozac®, something to make folks realise the futility of playing a game you cannot win. Pursuing politics in the name of liberty may very well turn out to be less likely than winning the lottery given the last 30 years. Lawsuits certainly don't help. Neither do the numerous letters to the editor.

We live today in a country where the courts have ruled that police may knock down your door without warning, order you to stop for no reason and arrest you if you do not obey, change election laws on a whim and have their right to free speech negated. And people are willing to stand for this in order to continue playing the political game. Does anyone here remember Einstein's definition of insanity?

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Somewhere there must be a vaccination for this disease. I hate to see folks whom I like suffer. There has to be a better way than this. Not necessarily easier, but better.

That said, I'm going to go and kill some Japanese Beetles now. I know how to deal with those insects.

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